“It’s done.”

Zhou Lihua wiped the sweat from her forehead and admired the pill she had finally formed after what felt like several days of work. The Chilling Bone Pill had a few lumps, signs that it wasn’t the highest grade. She had had some issues figuring out what temperature a few of the ingredients required. Even so, she had managed to refine it on her first try, so she would consider this a success.

The Bone Chilling Pill was a dull gray. It looked like iron condensed into a ball. It rested neatly on her palm, rocking back and forth as she took deep breaths.

“I won’t be able to refine the Heavenly Ghost Flame like this,” Zhou Lihua murmured. She had used up way too much chi. If she wanted to refine a heavenly flame, she would first need to recover all the chi she had used refining this pill.

She stored the pill in her ring and popped a Middle-Grade Chi Gathering Pill into her mouth, closed her eyes, and began meditating. All the chi within the room began swirling around her. It converged on her location. Zhou Lihua felt the energy rushing into her through her pores. It entered her as she breathed in through her nose.

Time passed. Zhou Lihua didn’t know how much time had gone by, but her body was filled to the brim with energy. Now that her chi had fully replenished, she could continue on to the next step.

Battling the heavenly flame.

Refining a heavenly flame was no small feat. Heavenly flames had a sentience of their own, and they did not wish to be refined by humans. She would have to defeat the heavenly flame in combat and make it submit to her.

That foolish prince had others battle the heavenly flame for him, and he only acted after it had already been weakened. That’s why he could become an osmium ranked alchemist despite having a low cultivation. I won’t be like that.

Zhou Lihua felt nothing but contempt for Cì Chuān. He had so much talent, but he felt no compunction to improve himself. He was satisfied with his lot of life.

She was not satisfied. Zhou Lihua wanted to reach the peak of alchemy, to become the second rhodium rank alchemist in the history of the Xaio Continent, and then she wanted to go even beyond that. While part of her motivation was Wu Jian, the rest was her own desires. She wanted to see what lay beyond the highest plateau an alchemist could ascend to.

Taking a deep breath, Zhou Lihua centered herself as she reached for the latch on the container that kept the Heavenly Ghost Flame restrained. She flipped the latch--and the heavenly flame slammed into the container as if it could sense freedom was at hand. The lid flew up and the Heavenly Ghost Flame flew out. It raced around the room as though looking for an escape route, thought it wouldn’t find one. This room had been built specifically for refining heavenly flames.

Zhou Lihua stood to her feet.

“There is no escape for you. Now come here!”

She dashed forward, channeling chi to the bottom of her feet and expelling it to propel her forward. The Heavenly Ghost Flame darted away from her as she tried to snatch it from the sky. It swerved around behind her and attacked.

Zhou Lihua danced away from the flames as it attempted to slam into her. She summoned a pair of tessen from her storage rings and swung them, generating an intense gust of wind that struck the flames and pushed them back. Fire would not work in this battle. So she resorted to other means of combat.

Flames and wind danced through the room and slammed into each other as Zhou Lihua fought the Heavenly Ghost Flame. Heat from the bright silvery flames lashed at her. She flinched as several whisps touched her skin, searing her body. It felt less like her body was being burned and more like her soul was burning. Gnashing her teeth together as blood welled up, Zhou Lihua swung both tessens to blow the flames away.

The Heavenly Ghost Flame was very powerful despite having been deprived of oxygen and weakened by being stuck inside of that container for so long. It was more than able to match her. Of course, she couldn’t use her most powerful attacks, but even so, she would not have expected this flame to put up such a valiant struggle.

Black marks appeared on her arms, legs, and face as she continued to fight the Heavenly Ghost Flame. Since wind pressure didn’t work, Zhou Lihua had closed the distance and launched physical attacks. She slammed her chi-infused tessens into the Heavenly Ghost Flame, sending it careening across the room, slamming into the wall. A barrier appeared where it struck. Ripples spread across the barrier to diffuse the power.

It didn’t remain still for long. The Heavenly Ghost Flame raced forward, the air around it exploding with silver gouts of fire. Zhou Lihua barely dodged its suicidal attack. She spun around, struck it with her tessen, and sent it careening into the wall on the opposite side.

“Aaah?!”

While her attack had launched it away, the flames struck her hand, causing her to drop her tessen. She grimaced as silver fire engulfed her left hand. She tried to put the flames out, but standard methods didn’t work. With gritted teeth, she pushed chi through the pores on her hand, snuffing the flame but leaving her exhausted.

Putting out these flames is harder than it looks. You have to smother it with more chi than what was used to create it--and this heavenly flame is more powerful than me.

Zhou Lihua realized she would not be able to defeat this heavenly flame without using her trump card. It was just too powerful.

Sucking in a deep breath, Zhou Lihua adopted a wide horse stance. She clapped her hands together, the sound ringing out around her, and channeled all of her chi into her alchemy flames. This would normally cause her flames to manifest in the outside world, but she suppressed them. Instead of manifesting, they combusted inside of her, generating a powerful force of energy that caused her hair to turn a golden red.

[Alchemical Combustion]

This was a technique granted to her via her cultivation method. Alchemists were not fighters, but that did not mean they possessed no techniques to protect themselves. [Alchemical Combustion] made her alchemy flames continuously explode inside of her body, granting her increased physical prowess and chi enhanced by her flames. Like all enhancement techniques, this would leave her exhausted afterward, but she would be much stronger until she used up all her chi.

She could maintain this form for ten minutes.

“All right. It’s time for round two,” Zhou Lihua muttered, her now golden eyes blazing.

***

The world was dyed in silver flames. Heat permeated every jin of the room.

Zhou Lihua burst from the flames that the Heavenly Ghost Flame attacked her with. Her skin was singed, but she was mostly unharmed. She dashed toward the Heavenly Ghost Flame and smacked it with her tessen. The attack was powerful enough that it rocketed backward, slammed into the wall, and bounced back.

She tried to smack it again, but it zipped around her and struck her in the back. Withholding a cry of pain, Zhou Lihua spun around, transforming her hair into a sharp weapon that stabbed the flames, though she was forced to retract it when her hair caught fire.

How much time had passed since this battle began? Zhou Lihua didn’t know. She fought without concern for the time. There was no time to even focus on such inane thoughts. All that mattered was defeating the Heavnely Ghost Flame, all she cared about was forcing it to submit.

The Heavenly Ghost Flame’s powerful aura had diminished greatly since their battle began. So had hers, but Zhou Lihua was an alchemist. She had made liberal use of alchemy pills to restore her chi, though there was no pill that could replenish her vitality.

“Just! Sub! Mit! To me!”

Zhou Lihua’s shouts were punctuated with a powerful kick that caught the Heavenly Ghost Flame. Her last attack was a heel drop that slammed the heavenly flame into the floor. She kept her heel on top of the flames as it struggled to break free, but its aura soon diminished and it stopped struggling.

Assuming it had given up, Zhou Lihua removed her foot, but that was a mistake. The Heavenly Ghost Flame suddenly exploded into action. It slammed into Zhou Lihua’s chest. Blood and bile splashed from her mouth as she was lifted off her feet. She struck the ground hard. Gasping as she lay on her back, she barely had enough time to roll away when the Heavenly Ghost Flame came down as though to crush her between it and the floor.

She kicked the fire away as she leapt back to her feet and dashed forward. The Heavenly Ghost Flame tried to escape, but she grabbed it with her hand, ignoring the burns that appeared on her palm, and slammed it into the wall. The flames struggled and flared with brilliant incandescence. Zhou Lihua’s hand became black and blood seeped through newly formed cracks on her skin, but she tenaciously held on. She refused to back down.

The flames finally diminished, and this time, Zhou Lihua felt the Heavenly Ghost Flame’s aura vanish for real. She breathed deeply as she maintained her grip on the flames, expecting them to try and burst free. They didn’t. She slowly relaxed her grip, but the flames remained docile.

“Okay… that… should do it… now… onto the next… phase…”

Zhou Lihua was exhausted, but she dragged her battered body back to the center of the room, sat down, and summoned the Bone Chilling Pill and Ice Soul Flame Pill. After staring at them for a second, she put the Bone Chilling Pill into her mouth and swallowed.

Almost immediately, she felt the pill going to work. Her bones seemed to freeze over, the chilling cold rapidly spreading to her veins, organs, and muscles. The intense chill made her shiver, but she knew better than to remain still. She grabbed the other pill and swallowed it next.

“Uuugh… Aaaaah… uuuurk…”

Pain like thousands of icy needles stabbed into her soul. The Icy Soul Pill was one that covered her meridians and dantian in ice, which would protect her from the Heavenly Ghost Flame. It felt like her chi sea had frozen over. She was certain it would have looked like a frozen lake if she were to enter her subconscious.

Zhou Lihua did her best to meditate while the two pills spread throughout her body. It was… much harder than she first assumed it would be. The ice filling her body made it almost impossible to concentrate. Her teeth chattered and her body shook as the numbing cold spread across her. Worse still, the cold sapped away all of her body heat, leaving her extremely tired.

This was the most dangerous part about using these pills. Ice formed inside the body, which protected her from the heavenly flame while she refined it, but it stole her body heat. Many alchemists had died during this phase. They simply fell asleep and never woke up. Many would be found days later as popsicles.

Once the pills effects reached every corner of her shivering body, Zhou Lihua grabbed the Heavenly Ghost Flame, floating docile beside her. It had become so tiny since their battle. The purpose of the fight was not just to make it submit, but to weaken it enough that she could consume it. Even though she knew what she must do, there was still some fear over the idea of actually eating this flame. What if it burned her soul when she consumed it? She didn’t want to become a charred husk.

Despit her fears and the worry in her heart, she shoved the Heavenly Ghost Flame into her mouth and swallowed it whole. The flames tasted like… well, nothing. There was no flavor. Just heat. Zhou Lihua closed her eyes and formed a hand seal to begin the refining process.

Refining a heavenly flame was a lot like refining alchemy ingredients. The difference lay in what she did. When refining alchemy ingredients, alchemists wrapped their flames around it and purified the ingredients, turning them into a liquified substance that could be combined with other ingredients. When refining a heavenly flame, the steps were different. She still had to wrap it in her alchemy flames, but she was directing the heavenly flame through her meridians and into her dantian.

The process was painful. It felt like her body was being burned from the inside out. Not even the Bone Chilling Pill and Ice Soul Flame Pill were able to completely protect her, but she gritted her teeth and kept pushing the heavenly flame through her meridians, which lit aflame whenever the Heavenly Ghost Flame passed through.

She eventually reached her dantian.

Like everyone else’s dantian, hers looked like a giant sphere floating inside of her chi sea. The color of her dantian was a bright red mixed with brown swirled. The brown was her wood element. The red was fire. Zhou Lihua took a calming breath, changed her hand seals again, then pushed the Heavenly Ghost Flame toward her dantian.

Zhou Lihua expected pain after the flame touched her dantian, but that wasn’t what happened, and instead, the Heavenly Ghost Flame simply sank into her dantian and warmth spread across her body. The ice that had formed along her organs, muscles, veins, and meridians melted off as silver flames raced through her body. Every section of her became covered in flames, but they no longer hurt. If anything, she felt much stronger than before.

My cultivation is rising…

This was expected. Incorporating a heavenly flame meant making its strength her own. They were natural treasures of pure chi. It was more effective than taking several dozen alchemy pills at once. Zhou Lihua quickly broke through the half-step Human Limit Realm and entered the first subrealm, then the second, and then the third. Her cultivation seemed to climb even higher, but it stopped just before she could enter the fourth subrealm.

Alone in the tiny room, Zhou Lihua’s body was engulfed in silver flames as she began stabilizing her cultivation.